Skip to main content

An Inside Look at the Palo Verde Nuclear Plant

By
Phoenix, Arizona's Channel 3 crew had the opportunity to record a few minutes of video of the inside of containment at one of the three Palo Verde units that was undergoing a refueling outage. Be sure to check it out.
Labels:

Comments

Anonymous said…
Palo Verde 'Nucular' plant.
May 12, 2009 at 9:38 AM
Anonymous said…
Way to go Palo Verde for making this happen, but I wish the tv station would have made the most out of it. There was nothing of substance in this piece and not a lot of shot of the inside.
May 12, 2009 at 12:08 PM
David Walters said…
Sucker runs of waste water from Phoenix. How cool is that?
May 12, 2009 at 1:05 PM
Jason Ribeiro said…
That's pretty cool but too bad it's just a short filler segment.

Since most of the general public can't go on a tour of a nuclear plant anymore, it would be really nice if someone would produce a video tour of a plant and put it online. Something with some educational commentary that after you watch it, you really felt like you went on a real tour.
May 12, 2009 at 8:10 PM
Anonymous said…
What an incredibly anti-intellectual piece of TV.

Too bad, given that it's a fascinating plant.

/Starvid
May 12, 2009 at 10:14 PM
anony-Mouse said…
Its a pity they didnt say much of a substance. I visited one NPP during refueling shutdown and there were so many cool things going around - refueling machine, Cherenkov radiation clearly visible, tests of tubes in the steam generators etc.

What a shame they dropped all these possibilities to educate the public for the silly radiation gate shots and contamination scarce nonsense.
May 13, 2009 at 12:40 AM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How Nanomaterials Can Make Nuclear Reactors Safer and More Efficient

By
The following is a guest post from Matt Wald, senior communications advisor at NEI. Follow Matt on Twitter at @MattLWald.

From the batteries in our cell phones to the clothes on our backs, "nanomaterials" that are designed molecule by molecule are working their way into our economy and our lives. Now there’s some promising work on new materials for nuclear reactors.

Reactors are a tough environment. The sub atomic particles that sustain the chain reaction, neutrons, are great for splitting additional uranium atoms, but not all of them hit a uranium atom; some of them end up in various metal components of the reactor. The metal is usually a crystalline structure, meaning it is as orderly as a ladder or a sheet of graph paper, but the neutrons rearrange the atoms, leaving some infinitesimal voids in the structure and some areas of extra density. The components literally grow, getting longer and thicker. The phenomenon is well understood and designers compensate for it with a …
1 comment
Read more

Missing the Point about Pennsylvania’s Nuclear Plants

By
A group that includes oil and gas companies in Pennsylvania released a study on Monday that argues that twenty years ago, planners underestimated the value of nuclear plants in the electricity market. According to the group, that means the state should now let the plants close.

Huh?

The question confronting the state now isn’t what the companies that owned the reactors at the time of de-regulation got or didn’t get. It’s not a question of whether they were profitable in the '80s, '90s and '00s. It’s about now. Business works by looking at the present and making projections about the future.

Is losing the nuclear plants what’s best for the state going forward?

Pennsylvania needs clean air. It needs jobs. And it needs protection against over-reliance on a single fuel source.


What the reactors need is recognition of all the value they provide. The electricity market is depressed, and if electricity is treated as a simple commodity, with no regard for its benefit to clean air o…
Post a Comment
Read more

Why Nuclear Plant Closures Are a Crisis for Small Town USA

By
Nuclear plants occupy an unusual spot in the towns where they operate: integral but so much in the background that they may seem almost invisible. But when they close, it can be like the earth shifting underfoot.

Lohud.com, the Gannett newspaper that covers the Lower Hudson Valley in New York, took a look around at the experience of towns where reactors have closed, because the Indian Point reactors in Buchanan are scheduled to be shut down under an agreement with Gov. Mario Cuomo.


From sea to shining sea, it was dismal. It wasn’t just the plant employees who were hurt. The losses of hundreds of jobs, tens of millions of dollars in payrolls and millions in property taxes depressed whole towns and surrounding areas. For example:

Vernon, Vermont, home to Vermont Yankee for more than 40 years, had to cut its municipal budget in half. The town closed its police department and let the county take over; the youth sports teams lost their volunteer coaches, and Vernon Elementary School lost th…
Post a Comment
Read more